© LAURA BARISONZIMicrobiologist Benjamin tenOever wanted a fun way to get his microRNA-focused lab members interested in genes upregulated by interferons, proteins released by host cells under pathogenic attack. So he created Game of Clones. The single-elimination tournament, akin to a basketball bracket and broadcast over Twitter, pits two genetically altered flu viruses against one another to see which one fares better in a mouse. “It’s a little bit just for fun, but it also has a purpose,” says tenOever. “What Game of Clones has done is pulled [interferon-inducible] genes out of the woodwork.”
TenOever’s interest in interferons’ roles in infection goes back to his days at McGill University. During an undergraduate microbiology class, tenOever attended a lecture about viruses, which ignited his interest and set the course for his research trajectory. “It was one individual teacher who taught with such passion it was impossible not to fall in love with viruses.” TenOever decided to stay at McGill for graduate school and joined the lab of John Hiscott to study how cells respond to viral infection.
He and another student in the lab teamed up to figure out that two kinases—IKKε and TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1)—flip the “on” switch in a viral host’s innate immunity by activating two interferon regulatory factors.1 “Even though [the paper] didn’t provide a lot ...
